Hidden Hues
by tie-dye-flag
Summary: Hero didn't know that much about RGB-all she knew about the suave, surreal man was his uncaring personality and complex words. Mean and confusing, as she put it. But after waking up from a mysterious blackout on The Plains of Hesitation, she discovers a new side to RGB, a completely different color scheme.


**I obviously do not own The Property of Hate nor the characters.**

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><p>He had asked her a simple question; "What is your name?" A question like that is supposed to be answered in an instant, less than a second. Yet the girl's voice got caught in her throat, freezing her tongue. She pierced her stare aimlessly at the ground. She ran her fingers feverishly through her hair. She cupped her hands nervously around her face. Eventually drops of salty water leaked out from the corners of her eyes and fell to the ground, just like her body, until she was sitting among the blades of tall red grass.<p>

"…Yes, well…aha…" RGB uneasily uttered as he spun his bamboo cane behind his back. "Funny what you don't notice is missing, isn't it."

Hero sat like a stuffed bear with a frightened expression sewn into its face. She did not show any acknowledgement to the man's words, but instead hugged her knees to her torso and buried her face into her arms, letting the sleeves of her red coat grow damp with her tears. For a long, long pause Hero stayed like that while her guide glanced around his feet, not noticing the doubts crawling around the eight year old.

"…Look, this is all very well." He said. Clenching her teeth, Hero clumsily tugged the hood of her coat over her head and pulled herself into a tighter ball. RGB spoke some more, but all the girl's ears picked up was the emotion laced into his words. It was not the feeling of sympathy.

"NO!" She yelled, shocking her 'friend' to where he nearly fell backwards. "GO AWAY!"

Hero glared up at RGB's shiny screen, framing his rainbow frown. He towered above her, but the girl grew aware that in reality he was short for a man, just an inch under five and a half feet. Not that it mattered; he could've been taller than Big Ben for all she cared. This man-no, this monster-had never shown her genuine kindness, never given her a clear answer, never, ever, ever…

"You're mean! And confusing! And I hate you!" She cried, baring her teeth. "I HATE YOU!"

RGB tilted his TV head as if staring down at her with his nose in the air, disgusted. Hero sniffed and shoved her face back into her arms, too upset to bother reading his expression.

"…Fine." He hissed with tight fists. The monster turned around and walked away as he continued to speak. "You can't go back-you won't go forwards-just stay there. Die." Then he flung his arms up in the air with open palms. "See if I give a damn."

Of course, RGB's words were wasted, not clearly reaching Hero's ears. With him walking away from the young brunette, his voice projected itself in the opposite direction. And the hood Hero held tightly over her head didn't help, either. She wept in the dark of her curled up body, blocking out the rest of the world. The surreal red grass surrounding her like a beast's fur, the bizarre geometric shapes floating in the sky, the idle silence of the barren plains…

Hero's tears shut out everything, even the semi-transparent worms that steadily crept around her.

_"W…why am I even here? Why can't I go home?"_

Doubt bubbled up in her mind as it crawled up her rain boots.

_"W-why can't I remember my name? My home? Anything?!"_

She clenched her teeth while the doubts made their way to her shoulders.

_"I-I can't remember anything! I can't be a hero! I can't-! I just can't-!"_

The voice inside her head fell silent, overwhelmed and overcome with these feelings, both inside of her mind and outside of her body, now trapped in a clear, gelatinous prison lined with yellowed teeth.

Hero simply thought she had cried herself to sleep. Her subconscious didn't have the energy for the phrases "I'm scared," or "This is just a bad, bad dream," or "I'm going to die…I'm going to die, just like TOby said."

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><p>Hero sluggishly opened her eyes, vaguely feeling the damp remains of her tears on her cheeks. She found herself lying on the ground with her hood only halfway over her brown hair. The girl pushed herself up from the ground, immediately rubbing her dizzy head. She wanted to recall what had transpired before her peculiar blackout, but something else caught her attention. It wasn't how the once blood red grass now bore shades of flamingo pink. It wasn't how her favorite jacket looked and felt more like sewn strands of jell-o. It was how a sharp, strained screech vibrated through the air and grew closer to Hero.<p>

An Indian ink black fear slid past her, but not out of its own free will. As the fear's claws dug into the ground-creating the strident _SKRRRRRRR! _that the girl was hearing-a skeleton's arm pulled it backwards by the eye socket. No, wait-it wasn't part of a skeleton at all. It was a chalk grey cane that appeared to be made of bamboo, or some other cheaply fashioned wood.

As the creature was dragged away, Hero's eyes followed it, not knowing what to discover.

A gloved hand the color of a crow's feathers firmly but elegantly grabbed the cane, rendering the quivering fear helpless. Its bony shoulder nearly nudged a pair of pants that perfectly matched the glove. The other partner held the edge of another fear's head like a sword. There were no wrists attaching the gloves with the static grey sleeves of the stylish blazer that fluttered gracefully behind its wearer.

Hero took a sharp intake of air, only to have it taken away as she looked at where she expected the head to be.

An 80's styled TV projecting an unsettling black and white eyeball stared silently at her as pure black ink dripped out of the edges of the screen and vents. The drops dripped heavenwards, defying gravity. A cheap gray hat rested on the upper right corner of the TV, on the opposite side where two metal antennas pointed in the air.

The girl was too shocked to cry out his name. This was RGB, no doubt about it. At the same time, as she stared at him between stems sporting spooky blue roses with golden thorns, this was _not_ the RGB she had known.

Hero sat in her spot in terror as she watched the grayscale monster swing the blade of the fear's head like an expert swordsman. RGB swung his cane upwards, breaking off the other fear's head, making the cane into an effective makeshift scythe. He hacked, chopped, and slashed at the other beasts, slicing them up into unrecognizable pieces.

_SLAK! HACK! CHOK, SHUNK! THWOK!_

Paralyzed with fright, Hero held her paw like hands up to her face, trying to cover her eyes from the horrendous show, but her fingers refused to obey her wishes. She would have been frozen like that for all of time if it wasn't for the sliced fear's head that fell besides her with a crisp _shink_! When it did, she flinched away from it with eyes the size of volleyballs.

Not a single fear was left standing, nor in one piece. As Hero stared at RGB's backside, he casually dropped his weapons while looking ahead. That's when the girl properly noticed another creature gazing at them; a tall, abstract being with two glowing eyes pouring water out like twin, thin waterfalls. Even though it was over five times RGB's height, Hero did not find it scary or threatening, but eerie and mysterious. The creature gazed at the black and grey man for a long, pensive moment before slithering away and abandoning the duo.

RGB stood stiffly, resembling a statue coated with coal black paint. He was so still that when he swiftly turned his head around to Hero, she felt jolts of anxiety dash up and down her spine. Even worse, he began to approach her, casting his shadow over the helpless girl. Hero held her breath as her eyes stretched wider. She wanted to run-no, had to! Run away from this man! This monster! This…this…

_"Are you a monster?"_

_ "The very worst one."_

Yes, she had to run away from the very worst monster. The very, very worst-once very, very charming, now very, very scary.

So why wouldn't her legs move? Why wouldn't they carry her to safety? And why wouldn't her lips part to let out a scream? Why?

RGB knelt forward and stretched his hand out towards her. Hero's nerves had snapped, and forced her into a frightened ball, burying her head into her arms, shivering like a cornered baby rabbit. She couldn't bear to watch his screen projecting his petrifying eye any longer, nor see the black hand grow closer, like the hand of death.

The monster's hand did land on her-on the head, in fact. And rather gently, ruffling her short hair like a dog's fur.

Puzzlement barged into Hero's mind, encouraging her to lift her head. With a baffled gleam in her eyes, she blinked at the dark monster, surprised at finding nothing threatening in his posture.

This was the same monster-or man-or whatever you could call him-who had mercilessly sliced up a pride of fears and intimidated an unknown creature as tall as a house. Yet now he was tenderly tousling her hair as if she was a loved one.

"…R-RGB…?" She whispered.

Before another word could pass her tongue, however, RGB jolted his hand away as his entire body flicked with color. His screen grew hazy as neon hues flashed against eerie grays, as if fighting for dominance. The man's attire also exhibited a similar predicament; the stark black threads of his blazer flared with creamy whites and vibrant reds. For a split second his whole body was back to its initial, bright colors, but then parts of him flickered with bizarre patterns resembling static.

"Oh…" RGB held his head with one hand as he groaned. "I…feel…T_e_R**ri**B_le_…" The rest of his body fell into a disarray of unsettling TV test patterns as he fell to his side. His weight made a dull FWUMP when he hit the fear littered ground.

Hero leaned backwards slightly, flabbergasted at what had transpired before her. Images of RGB ran before her mind's eye, in all of his snappy suits of saturated colors, with his charming smile but unsympathetic behavior. Then she thought about the shadowy black pigments his clothes had taken on moments before, with his frightening eye but silent kindness. Now she gazed at the disoriented patterns possessing his attire and TV set, with his blank screen and wrinkled coat.

She had seen so many colors on this unusual person, whatever he was. But that wasn't the pressing question. The real question was which color scheme revealed his true colors, his hidden hues?

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><p><strong>AN: Yep, the inspiration bug bit me, and I finally managed to get a break from my homework. I was pretty pumped about writing this because it talks about an interesting theory about Negative RGB I've heard. In the comic, RGB's white suit in chapter six Negative was specifically designed to be the opposite of his negative colors. Not only is his color scheme inverted, but screen as well; normally it shows a grin (where people watch him) with his rainbow drool dripping down, but while negative it broadcasts an eyeball (he watches others) and the black ink drips <em>up<em>. His cowardly personality is also given the opposite treatment, where instead of choosing flight, he fights.**

**Now then, what if this 'opposite treatment' is applicable to how he treats Hero? He does not want to get attached to her, and whatever subtle kindness he feels for her, he hides it. Perhaps near the end of chapter six, where he's reaching out to Hero, he's not trying to harm her; maybe he's trying to make sure she's okay. **

**Of course, the creator can't have the audience feel sympathetic for the very worst monster, so he had to change back to his original self and collapse. But that won't stop me from writing a fanfic about it :3**

**(Did I mention that this fanfic has the least amount of dialogue I've ever done in a fanfic?)**


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